Michael Grillo’s fondest memories of coaching Kyson Witherspoon at Fletcher High School in Jacksonville, Florida, are the small moments of pure joy the game of baseball brings.
Grillo remembers Kyson’s wide grin when he won all-county awards and when he led the team to major tournament wins. He often reflects on Kyson’s youthful energy in the dugout as a junior varsity freshman when he joined the main team during its playoff run.
Even throughout his disappointing junior season when he stumbled on the mound and at the plate, Kyson was jubilant about getting back on the field to work out and improve.
And on Sunday, when Kyson hears his name called during the first round of the 2025 MLB Draft with his twin brother Malachi likely to follow later that evening, the euphoria will be at an all-time high.
“The (Witherspoon brothers) have those magnetic smiles, they light up a room,” Grillo said. “It’s so big and genuine and they have big hearts. Honestly, I’m not going to think about anything baseball (during the draft). I’m going to think about them as humans and what a special moment this will be that’ll stay with them and their family forever.”
Kyson’s love for baseball and his relentless drive to be great led to meteoric growth.
He went from starting at shortstop for Fletcher as a junior to starring as a pitcher at Northwest Florida State College to dominating the SEC this past season as OU’s ace, finishing as a consensus first-team All-American. His 2.65 earned run average ranked second in the SEC and he’s listed as the No. 10 overall prospect in ESPN’s latest MLB Draft rankings.
“That was the exciting thing for us,” Sooners coach Skip Johnson said, “to watch how much his growth happened in a year and a half or two years that he was here. When he walked in here, we knew how talented he was, but we watched him put everything together.
“To be able to understand what pitch design was, repeat his mechanics, his maintenance schedule of doing it every day, his running, his lifting and how he went about his business.”
Johnson remembers walking into the OU locker room following a rare rough outing for Kyson when he tipped his pitches and the opposing team’s bats jumped all over him. The Sooners’ ace stood in front of a mirror alone and worked on his setup repeatedly until he maintained a consistent delivery to avoid tipping pitches.
A standout moment from this past season for Grillo, who watched most of OU’s games on TV, was when Kyson worked out of a two-out jam during a conference game and let out a ferocious scream with a powerful fist pump as he walked off the field. He screenshotted the moment from a social media post and sent it to Kyson, telling him that was what a professional baseball player looked like.
“Skip turned him into a big leaguer,” Grillo said. “At the end of the year, I thought, ‘That guy is throwing big league innings in four months.’ He took a kid and made him a professional with control of every pitch and ice in his veins. We always knew Kyson was going to be a killer and Skip brought it out of him. He made him display what a killer looks like on the mound.”
Kyson displays an elite fastball, slider and curveball. Under Johnson, one of the best pitching coaches in the country, he reinvented his delivery and arm action.
His athleticism also stands out to scouts. He continued to climb mock drafts throughout the past year. ESPN’s latest mock has Kyson going No. 13 overall to San Francisco.
“There are not many people in the world who can throw that hard and that many pitches and be in the strike zone with all of them,” Eric Beattie, who coached Kyson in the Cape Cod Baseball League, said. “With his arsenal and his ability to make adjustments from pitch to pitch, he could be at the top of the rotation and a Major League starter one day.
“And then he’s a great kid, very respectful. He treats people great, and he’s always looking for more information and people like Kyson, they end up being elite performers.”
Kyson’s desire to succeed was infectious in the Sooners’ locker room. The standard Kyson set for himself and his teammates reminded Johnson of past OU pitching standouts and current pros, Jake Bennett, Cade Cavalli, Cade Horton and Jake Irvin.
Grillo, who has watched Kyson pitch since he was a child, thinks he still hasn’t scratched the surface of his potential. He predicts Kyson could be a late-season call-up type of player.
What makes Sunday even more special for Kyson and those closest to him is that he’ll share another lifelong memory with Malachi, who had an elite end to this past season with the Sooners.
Malachi finished the season with nine strikeouts while allowing zero runs against Nebraska in the Chapel Hill Regional. He’s ranked as the No. 49 overall prospect in ESPN’s latest rankings.
“I don’t know where Malachi goes, you never know,” Johnson said. “It happens differently for different people. Kyson was there faster with all the little details that happen in pitching and you got to see Malachi at the end of the season. He’s starting where Kyson started at the beginning of this year. It’s incredible.”
While Kyson and Malachi’s pitching stocks have risen, their humility has only grown.
Following their final collegiate season at OU, the brothers left Johnson a picture of themselves with a note thanking him for helping them grow as pitchers. When the Witherspoons are drafted and embark on their professional careers, Johnson will recall the note and how the brothers signed it: “We love you, Skip.”
“That’s really what it’s about,” Johnson said, “you can win a national championship, but knowing you left a mark on those guys’ lives, like they’ve done to us, that’s what makes me tick.”
Colton Sulley covers the Oklahoma Sooners for The Oklahoman. Have a story idea for Colton? He can be reached at csulley@oklahoman.com or on X/Twitter at @colton_sulley. Support Colton’s work and that of other Oklahoman journalists by purchasing a digital subscription today at subscribe.oklahoman.com.